The First Weekend, Part 3: Stupidity of the 70s

A brief recap of the 1970s

The Good: Led Zeppelin, homosexuality is removed from the DSM, The Brady Bunch, Pong, the Sears Tower, Star Wars, Evan

The Bad: Nixon, vast economic crisis, terrorism at the 1972 Olympic Games, Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, the Vietnam War, Rush

The Ugly: Wood paneling

Seriously, what were you people thinking? It just is not possible to recreate a log cabin feel by slapping some paneling on your walls. A room does not feel larger by extending the floor onto the walls. Wood paneling has not become a classic housing feature.

After much research into the various ways to negate the ugliness of wood paneling in a room, we threw up our hands and said, "let's just pull it down. How bad could it be?"


The paneling in the office comes down.

Generally, "how bad could it be?" is supposed to be a rhetorical question. But we got an answer, and that answer was, "it could rip chunks out of your drywall - not to mention, leave large globs of glue all over the place."


The office wall, sans paneling.

And then the answer continued: "I hope you like to spackle. A lot."


Kristen's mom, repairing the office wall.

Oh, but the office wall was an easy fix compared to the living room wall...


The paneling in the living room had been glued down with care.

Now, that particular wall is the largest wall in our house. It was completely covered in paneling, and each piece was glued the same way. With lots of glue. And that glue happily pulled down large strips of our drywall.

So, we sanded, and spackled, and sighed. And once again, we threw up our hands and said, "well, we can live with a slightly bumpy wall, but there's no way we can smooth the corner where the wall meets the ceiling. It's just too much glue." At which point, Evan turns to me and asks, "how do you feel about crown moulding?" And I replied, "crown moulding is fantastic."


Spackle and more spackle.

Conclusion: wood paneling is stupid

However, you'll be happy to know that, once painted, the bumps are much less noticeable. If you look closely at our walls, you'll see all the divets. But from a few feet away, you'd hardly know that they're there.

Next: The First Weekend, Part 4: SuperGeorgia